With the Playoffs berths decided, there was little interest around Sunday night’s match – the last of the league stage of IPL 2022 – between Punjab Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad. As things turned out, the Punjab bowlers did an excellent job to restrict Hyderabad to 157/8, and chased down the target in 15.1 overs with five wickets in hand.
Punjab Kings
The chase summed up Punjab’s approach throughout the tournament. In the two matches before Sunday’s, Rajasthan Royals and Mumbai Indians had taken 19.4, and 19.1 overs to chase 151 and 160 against Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals respectively. Despite being up against a low target (the tournament run rate across teams stands at 8.52), Punjab never hesitated to take risks, not even after they were 71/3 in the eighth over – a situation from where only a collapse could have denied them a win.
Throughout the tournament, Punjab have started their innings at a rapid pace before running out of steam. In fact, their run rate the Powerplay overs (9.11) were the best in the league stage, but in both the middle overs and at the death – in other words, for 70% of the innings – they have failed to keep up that tempo.
One reason behind this slump was Mayank Agarwal’s form. Agarwal scored 196 runs in the tournament at a strike rate of 123. Past halfway through the league stage, Agarwal decided to drop down the order in favour of Jonny Bairstow. While Punjab benefitted from that, Agarwal did not.
Punjab had probably backed Shikhar Dhawan to play the ‘anchor’ role in the tournament as the others would come out all guns blazing. However, Dhawan scored at 123, probably about ten fewer than what he would have liked.
Dhawan batted for 27 balls per innings – a quarter of the team innings – while scoring only 33. If Punjab had their eyes set on 200, that would have left them with a lot to score. However, they still might have got there more often, had Agarwal (and Shahrukh Khan) not struggled to get going as well. The incredible hitting of Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma, Jonny Bairstow, and Bhanuka Rajapaksa went amiss.
Had they dropped Agarwal at some point, it might have addressed the issue. They did not, probably because they wanted to back a retained cricketer whom they had identified as captain ahead of the season.
The Punjab bowling attack, identified as the weakest of the season, faced problems as well. Their economy rate (8.61) was the third-worst of the league stage.
Arshdeep, Rabada, and Chahar – their three main bowlers – had a reasonable season, but they had so little faith on the others that no other specialist bowler played more than five matches (Livingstone, Rishi Dhawan, and Odean Smith are all-rounders).
To sum up, Punjab could have backed at least one specialist bowler more than they did. They could also have been ruthless enough to drop Agarwal at some point.
Hyderabad
If Punjab has had the third-worst economy rate of the season so far, Hyderabad has the worst. In fact, they conceded 0.16 runs an over more than Mumbai Indians, the next team on the list. The gap is the largest between any two teams this season.
Hyderabad, too, faced exactly the same problem as Punjab. They came into the tournament with a very strong group of pacers, but with a relatively thin spinner attack. J. Suchith stood up in Washington Sundar’s absence time and again, but they rotated their bowlers too often for comfort.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Umran Malik played all 14 matches, while T. Natarajan played 11. Malik took 22 wickets at a strike rate of 13.4 and Natarajan 18 at 14.3, but both of them went for nine runs an over – more than what Hyderabad conceded in the tournament. In other words, two of Hyderabad’s three main bowlers were very expensive.
Hyderabad also had their batting problems, as exemplified by Table 1 above. Their Powerplay strike rate of 7.01 was the worst of the league stage, while they struck at a middling 10.77 in the death overs. That took the sheen off their excellent middle-overs strike rate of 8.51 – a number bettered only by the erratic Kolkata Knight Riders.
Part of Hyderabad’s Powerplay problems was Kane Williamson himself, who faced 18 balls per innings while scoring at less than a run a ball. This is the slowest by any opener with 200 runs in a single IPL season. In fact, Williamson’s is the only entry in the top ten since 2014.
Hyderabad had retained Williamson to lead them, but the decision to pick – and back – the captain before picking the XI hurt them more than other teams. Like Agarwal, he, too, dropped down the order – but it was too late by then.
Like Punjab, Hyderabad backed their captain more than they should have – a surprising move, given how prompt they were to sack David Warner in 2021. In 2023, they may want to pick the best possible XI ahead of every match instead of backing a captain irrespective of form and choosing ten from the rest.
Abhishek Mukherjee is the Chief Editor at CricketNews and co-author of Sachin and Azhar at Cape Town.
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